Hope is Blonde
by Every Shade of Blue
Summary: Lee Adama is a straight-laced first year cadet at the military academy when well-known troublemaker Kara Thrace becomes his first friend among his fellow cadets... and not in the way you'd expect.


A/N: I know Lee and Kara didn't actually meet at the Academy, but it can be really really fun to pretend they did.

* * *

Lee Adama didn't see the right hook coming until it was too late. He tried to duck, but all he managed to do was move just enough so that the older cadet's fist smashed into his temple, sending him reeling into the wall of the building behind him. Shaking his head to clear his slightly blurred vision, he scrambled to one side just in time to avoid a kick that had been aimed at his stomach. His attacker yelled in pain as his foot connected with a brick wall instead of with his opponent.

"You're gonna pay for that, Adama!"

Fully aware that, drunk as the other boy was, this threat was not to be taken lightly, Lee quickly got to his feet and assumed what would hopefully serve as a defensive position. This time, when the other cadet lunged at him, Lee sidestepped and took a swing of his own, desperate to end the fight as soon as possible. His own attack took the other boy full in the face, and Lee felt a sickening crunch under his hand as blood sprayed from an obviously broken nose.

The third year cadet swore loudly, obviously shocked that his first year opponent was actually putting up a decent fight. With a furious growl, he threw himself into the smaller boy, pinning him against the wall. His advantages in both height and weight were enough to prevent the kid from escaping a series of heavy blows to his stomach.

Lee groaned as the air was driven from his lungs, leaving him gasping for breath. He had to end this quickly, before things got any worse. Aiming a sharp kick at his attacker's shins and taking advantage of the resulting distraction, Lee managed to free himself by pushing the other boy away hard enough to make him loose his balance. As soon as his opponent hit the ground, Lee ran.

* * *

Captain Charles Jackson looked over the boy standing in front of him with a curious eye, wishing with all his heart that anyone other than him had been given the task of handling this unusual case. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have had any problem meting out appropriate punishments; cadets getting into fights was nothing new at a military academy, after all. But this time, it was different. Lee Adama was the last cadet Jackson would ever have imagined seeing in this position. Jackson hadn't had the boy in any of his classes yet, but he had heard plenty about him from the teachers who had. It was perfectly normal for there to be plenty of talk about the children of high profile members of the Colonial Fleet when they first entered the Academy, but, despite having been at the school for several months already, the Adama boy was still inspiring discussions among the faculty with his near-perfect academic record. He was a model student.

So how in the world had he ended up here?

"As I'm sure you've heard, Cadet Austen is still in sickbay. His nose is severely broken, and he sustained a mild concussion when he apparently fell backwards onto the sidewalk."

Lee nodded, his tense posture betraying his nervousness. "Yes, sir."

Jackson frowned, still trying to decide how the situation should be handled. He knew Adama hadn't escaped from the fight unscathed. There were obvious, half-healed scrapes along the side of his face, and Jackson had seen the sickbay doctor's pictures of the kid's badly bruised stomach and chest in the incident report. Judging by the beads of sweat that were starting to appear on his forehead, he was still in a fair amount of pain just from standing so rigid and straight for so long. But the fact remained that Austen was the worse off of the two, and no one seemed to be able to say which had started the fight.

Jackson sighed. "Can you tell me which one of you took the first swing?"

"Cadet Austen, sir."

"And if that's the case, why did he feel the need to attack you?"

Lee looked uncomfortable. "He's been having trouble in astrodynamics. He saw my last test and told me I had to let him cheat off of me on the next one. He – he threatened me. So I agreed, and I let him cheat. But I put down the wrong answers and waited until he'd handed his test in, and then I changed them to the right answers. The day we got the tests back and he saw that he'd failed, he got drunk and attacked me when I was on my way back to barracks." His voice was very small by the time he finished.

Jackson wanted to believe him. He was aware that Austen was doing poorly in astrodynamics, but that was nothing new. His failing grade on the last test wasn't unusual, and there was really no way to tell if he had been cheating off of the Adama boy or not. It wasn't hard to believe that Lee had felt threatened, though. He was certainly one of the smaller cadets, and no such descriptor could be applied to Austen.

"Cadet Austen says differently. He claims you attacked him." What Jackson didn't say was that neither he nor any of the rest of the faculty believed this story. Why in the world would a boy like Lee Adama start a fight with someone a head taller than him for no reason? But with no one to corroborate either story, there was no way to avoid punishing both cadets. "Whatever the case, this type of behavior cannot be tolerated. You and Cadet Austen will both spend time in hack, and this will go on your permanent record."

Lee paled visibly at the end of this statement. Jackson couldn't help wondering whether it was simply because the kid was so straight-laced he was horrified at the thought of the mark on his record, or if there was some deeper reason for his obvious fear. He had a strange feeling that it was the latter.

A sudden knock on the door startled him from his thoughts. Tearing his eyes away from the shamefaced boy in front of him, Jackson called out, "Enter."

To his great surprise, when the door swung open, it was Cadet Kara Thrace who stepped inside. She had never visited his office voluntarily before, and as far as he knew, she wasn't in trouble at the moment.

"Cadet Thrace, can this wait? I can see you after I finish up with Cadet – "

Kara interrupted him. "That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, sir. I heard you were looking for witnesses to the fight."

Jackson raised an eyebrow. "I was. Are you saying you saw what happened?"

She nodded. "Most of it, sir. I was across the quad at the time. I heard Austen yell something about how he'd failed some test or something because of him," she paused and nodded in Lee's direction, "and then Austen took a swing at him. Got him in the side of the head."

"And you didn't get involved?" Jackson asked disbelievingly. Surely Kara Thrace hadn't just walked away from a fight.

"As I said, I was on the other side of the quad. I figured I could help, but by the time I got closer, Austen was on the ground, and _he_ was running away," Kara said, nodding in Lee's direction again.

Jackson wouldn't have admitted it, but he was relieved. He really hadn't wanted to have to punish the Adama kid. "I'll need you to write a full statement detailing everything you saw."

"Yes, sir," Kara agreed. She glanced at the boy standing ramrod straight next to her. He didn't look like the type who would handle punishment well. "So this won't have to go on his record, right? You can hardly punish him for doing really well in one of his classes, and then preventing himself from being beaten to a pulp by a third year gorilla."

Jackson fought to hide a smile at Thrace's characteristically unusual description of what had happened. "No, I suppose not. If your statement corroborates his, then Cadet Austen will be the only one to receive any punishment for the incident."

The relief on Lee Adama's face was so obvious it was almost comical. Feeling sorry for him, Jackson dismissed both cadets.

"You're both free to go."

Lee and Kara saluted and left the office in silence, exiting the building and walking in the same direction without any consultation. Neither really knew the other, but they had both seen each other around the campus before, and they were in the same barracks. It wasn't until they were halfway across the campus that Kara finally broke the silence.

"So what's your name, anyway?"

"Lee," her companion answered. Then he reluctantly added, "Lee Adama."

"Adama?" Kara was surprised when Lee practically flinched. She had been about to say something about his father – she knew the name William Adama as well as anyone who had ever studied the Cylon War – but she had a feeling that it was a topic Lee would not be open to discussing. So she asked him something else instead. "So did you really get on that goon Austen's bad side just by being smart?"

Lee gave her a long sideways glance, clearly surprised by the change in topic. "I guess so," he answered finally. She was the first person who had heard his last name and not asked him about his dad, and it was a more than welcome change.

Kara could tell Lee was grateful for her restraint. She knew what it was like to have a relationship with a parent that wasn't something to discuss with strangers; if Lee Adama felt that way too then she certainly wasn't going to push him – not about that, anyway. So she settled for teasing. "Nerd."

Lee let out a snort of laughter, a surprisingly boyish smile lighting up his previously serious face. "Yeah, that's me. How else do you explain a first year cadet in a third year astrodynamics class?"

Kara shoved him playfully. "Exactly what I was thinking. You clearly spend way too much time with your nose in a book."

Lee's grin slipped somewhat. "I have to get good grades. I can't…"

He didn't finish the sentence, but Kara thought she had a good idea of where it had been headed. He couldn't fail. Not with the father he had. She could only imagine what it was like for him to have a reputation like William Adama's thrown in his face day after day, no matter what he did. Someone clearly needed to take his mind off of that.

"Well," she announced cheerfully, "tonight you're taking a break."

"I am?" he asked, bemused.

"You are," she confirmed. "Ever played pyramid before?"

"Er… a little in high school."

"Great! Pyramid court, tonight, seven o'clock. And don't be late. Even I'm never late for a pyramid match, so if you're not on time, I _will_ kick your ass." She arched an eyebrow threateningly. "Got it?"

"Got it," Lee nodded.

Kara grinned. "Excellent. See you then!" And then she ran off, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the quad.

Lee shook his head slightly as he watched her go, unable to decide exactly what had just happened. His naturally quiet demeanor and almost obsessive study habits hadn't exactly endeared him to the other cadets; he knew they talked about him, saying he was stuck up because of who his father was. It hurt a little more every time he heard it, but he couldn't bring himself to dispute it. But then Kara Thrace happened. He hadn't had to ask her name, as he had already known of her reputation. She was a troublemaker, exactly the opposite of Lee himself, and certainly not the kind of person he should be spending time with if he intended to make it through his years at the Academy with a spotless academic record. And yet…

There was just something about her that he liked. And if she liked him, maybe other people would, too.

Lee felt a reluctant smile tug at his lips as he watched that head of blonde hair disappear into the campus gym. For the first time since he'd started at the Academy, he felt more than the constant pressure of his father's smothering reputation weighing down on him. When he thought about Kara Thrace, he felt a glimmer of hope.


End file.
